I remember running
Down a hill flush with summer green.
Its gentle roll called to me,
Offering a day like no other.
I smile, recalling that ineffable experience.
Somewhat bewildered at finding this lovely memory
Available after so many years.
Where do I run today?
Certainly not over an expanse of undulating meadow
Where my feet flew and I met such pleasure.
Where my smallness and failures could not contain me
For the length of the field.
That child yearned so much for friends,
But felt he didn’t deserve them
And luxuriated in his loneliness.
I carry scars from that time that may have been.
I’ve left that child with few regrets
For a life that is fuller.
Where bad dreams do not assail me, nightly,
And I can share feelings with those I love.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Marvin
On a “wet back” trip near Oxford,
Helping to establish man’s presence
By digging ditches and looking for bones,
Marvin stopped work unable to breath.
We spoke 40 years earlier of “Alice In Wonderland”,
The CPA office he was then joining.
Like me he had come from New York City to Oahu
I would be his first boss.
Not a typical big firm CPA office
My first client had been a taxi shop.
Their office featured a slack key guitar
And enough Mary Jane to open distribution.
Despite Marvin’s Harvard Law credentials
I thought he was grounded,
Likeable and thoughtful, slightly burden by beliefs,
Yet capable of laughing at himself.
He was a perfect Stanley to my Livingstone,
Possessing few of my less charming traits,
OK, he seemed to believe in god.
But, I could be forgiving.
We could finish each others sentences, but never did,
Recognizing the need to listen.
Never talked baseball, he was from the Bronx.
Not a Dodger fan.
Marvin moved two years later,
We never really parted, spoke every week
Saw one another regularly,
Always stepping easily into each other’s psyche.
We’d explored Europe together
And he was anxious to join Diana and me
In search of another’s holy grail,
Human teeth in a Wooly Mammoth’s graveyard.
Ten years after Oxford
I wish I could tell him of my latest idiocy,
Listen to his outrage
And laugh about the human condition.
Helping to establish man’s presence
By digging ditches and looking for bones,
Marvin stopped work unable to breath.
We spoke 40 years earlier of “Alice In Wonderland”,
The CPA office he was then joining.
Like me he had come from New York City to Oahu
I would be his first boss.
Not a typical big firm CPA office
My first client had been a taxi shop.
Their office featured a slack key guitar
And enough Mary Jane to open distribution.
Despite Marvin’s Harvard Law credentials
I thought he was grounded,
Likeable and thoughtful, slightly burden by beliefs,
Yet capable of laughing at himself.
He was a perfect Stanley to my Livingstone,
Possessing few of my less charming traits,
OK, he seemed to believe in god.
But, I could be forgiving.
We could finish each others sentences, but never did,
Recognizing the need to listen.
Never talked baseball, he was from the Bronx.
Not a Dodger fan.
Marvin moved two years later,
We never really parted, spoke every week
Saw one another regularly,
Always stepping easily into each other’s psyche.
We’d explored Europe together
And he was anxious to join Diana and me
In search of another’s holy grail,
Human teeth in a Wooly Mammoth’s graveyard.
Ten years after Oxford
I wish I could tell him of my latest idiocy,
Listen to his outrage
And laugh about the human condition.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Tribute to a small rock.
I have this 5 pound rock,
Unprepossessing, but
Awarded for services rendered.
It is the first among equals.
Most trophies mark an event,
A successful completion of a task,
Recognition of some accomplishment,
Real or imagined.
Unlike other awards
I think of it as a reminder
Of a Sisyphean effort,
Doomed to failure.
I found something resembling “rightness”
In the unambiguous attempt to offer aid,
An existential decision,
Made beautiful by its futility.
Unlike other awards,
The rock has made no demands
On my time or my space.
Occasionally it holds a door open.
My rock never needs cleaning,
Can be left indoors or out,
Impervious to weather
Or it’s surroundings.
It will certainly survive me,
My sons and their children.
Shall I leave it to a deserving soul?
Or add it to my will?
There is an inscription on the rock,
“Donovan”, (the prison's name).
Still, it shows no criminal intent,
But rather, invites meditation.
Deep, relaxing breaths
Looking for the true nature of the “rock”.
It is a true teacher, listens quietly,
Offering no judgment.
Unprepossessing, but
Awarded for services rendered.
It is the first among equals.
Most trophies mark an event,
A successful completion of a task,
Recognition of some accomplishment,
Real or imagined.
Unlike other awards
I think of it as a reminder
Of a Sisyphean effort,
Doomed to failure.
I found something resembling “rightness”
In the unambiguous attempt to offer aid,
An existential decision,
Made beautiful by its futility.
Unlike other awards,
The rock has made no demands
On my time or my space.
Occasionally it holds a door open.
My rock never needs cleaning,
Can be left indoors or out,
Impervious to weather
Or it’s surroundings.
It will certainly survive me,
My sons and their children.
Shall I leave it to a deserving soul?
Or add it to my will?
There is an inscription on the rock,
“Donovan”, (the prison's name).
Still, it shows no criminal intent,
But rather, invites meditation.
Deep, relaxing breaths
Looking for the true nature of the “rock”.
It is a true teacher, listens quietly,
Offering no judgment.
Aesop’s Brother
Here’s the setting.
Ken Lays company was not doing much
The stock depressed, no one buying.
Comes a heat-seeking brainwave.
Instead of making little money,
How could he drive the stock?
People want excitement,
A stock that could goes to the moon and beyond
A little cosmetic surgery might work?
Tech stocks are selling
But little Kenny wants gazillions
That called for Dick Cheney’s help
“Never mind Kenney’s Shoe Store,
No sex there”, said Dick
“We need a socko name,
That says buy or die”.
“Maybe Uranium” Dick continued
“There’s a product that oozes sex & power
OK, it’s a shoe store.
Maybe Kenny’s Uranium Shoe Store? “
“Shoes made of Uranium? Interesting.
How much could we put on a shoe?
Would people detonate?
Well, there’s always collateral damage”
“Of course, just because it says Uranium
Doesn’t mean we have to use the stuff!
If we change your first name to Uranium
There we go, Uranium Lay. Talk about sexy”
“Now, Uranium Shoes is a go,
But no, I’ve got to do something to the shoes
That great first name, then shoes?
Won’t due.”
“If we change your last name to Uranium
Why not drop your first for something
That will drive suckers to their brokers?”
And that’s how Tip Top Uranium was born.
Ken Lays company was not doing much
The stock depressed, no one buying.
Comes a heat-seeking brainwave.
Instead of making little money,
How could he drive the stock?
People want excitement,
A stock that could goes to the moon and beyond
A little cosmetic surgery might work?
Tech stocks are selling
But little Kenny wants gazillions
That called for Dick Cheney’s help
“Never mind Kenney’s Shoe Store,
No sex there”, said Dick
“We need a socko name,
That says buy or die”.
“Maybe Uranium” Dick continued
“There’s a product that oozes sex & power
OK, it’s a shoe store.
Maybe Kenny’s Uranium Shoe Store? “
“Shoes made of Uranium? Interesting.
How much could we put on a shoe?
Would people detonate?
Well, there’s always collateral damage”
“Of course, just because it says Uranium
Doesn’t mean we have to use the stuff!
If we change your first name to Uranium
There we go, Uranium Lay. Talk about sexy”
“Now, Uranium Shoes is a go,
But no, I’ve got to do something to the shoes
That great first name, then shoes?
Won’t due.”
“If we change your last name to Uranium
Why not drop your first for something
That will drive suckers to their brokers?”
And that’s how Tip Top Uranium was born.
Morphine
Morphine. Its been 40 years
Since I met that seductress,
Yet still I recall the shift
From pain to peace.
Not the peace of a becalmed voice,
Calling from somewhere near Moronic.
But a wordless space
Where all was.
The silence omnipresent
I was part of it.
No thought was possible,
Just silence and consciousness
I did not move in my hospital bed,
It did not matter.
The vessel I lived in stayed,
Yet didn’t contain who “I’ am.
I wish I could take you there,
But the fare is not affordable.
A second visit is too terrible to contemplate.
In truth it can’t be done.
A mind free of body loses its center,
All that grounds us is put aside.
A terrifying level of thoughtless comprehension is present,
Far beyond understanding
Color, size, love, hate, need,
Are not.
A universal mind sounds trite
The term maybe meaningless, and mindless
You exist forever, always existed
And it doesn’t matter.
The universe is part of you
And that doesn’t matter
That may be "the peace”.
It is all clear, and
So-o-o comforting
I smile as in a state of grace
Since I met that seductress,
Yet still I recall the shift
From pain to peace.
Not the peace of a becalmed voice,
Calling from somewhere near Moronic.
But a wordless space
Where all was.
The silence omnipresent
I was part of it.
No thought was possible,
Just silence and consciousness
I did not move in my hospital bed,
It did not matter.
The vessel I lived in stayed,
Yet didn’t contain who “I’ am.
I wish I could take you there,
But the fare is not affordable.
A second visit is too terrible to contemplate.
In truth it can’t be done.
A mind free of body loses its center,
All that grounds us is put aside.
A terrifying level of thoughtless comprehension is present,
Far beyond understanding
Color, size, love, hate, need,
Are not.
A universal mind sounds trite
The term maybe meaningless, and mindless
You exist forever, always existed
And it doesn’t matter.
The universe is part of you
And that doesn’t matter
That may be "the peace”.
It is all clear, and
So-o-o comforting
I smile as in a state of grace
Reaching
Lined up, on both sides of the room,
The bodies seemed so peaceful
39 people (more to come),
Had found a way to join infinity.
They left Earth for Heavens Gate.
Well named I think.
March 27, 1997 these 39 chose to rendezvous
With something traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
They’d prepared for their journey,
Comfortably dressed, wearing dark shoes.
Leaving their bodies prone, on bunk beds
In the Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
Was there a message in those shoes?
Some metaphor for traveling?
They did not look
Like people who wore shoes to bed.
Tragedy becomes farce,
Especially when we're made uncomfortable.
Within days the waters were tested,
“Such a waste of perfectly good shoes”
It was essential to avoid the many Christian images
How could one enter the “Kingdom of Heaven"?
By committing suicide?
Such a terrible sin! Had they not read “The Book”?
What fools, simpletons.
Such a ridiculous belief system.
Surely they were deluded.
Still, there remains a kind of vibration.
If they were absurd… what of us?
Will someone offer a fact,
Just a small one, to note the difference
Separating our knowledge from their superstition?
Soon enough the distinction was found,
Uttered by a neighbor, “They were renters”
The bodies seemed so peaceful
39 people (more to come),
Had found a way to join infinity.
They left Earth for Heavens Gate.
Well named I think.
March 27, 1997 these 39 chose to rendezvous
With something traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
They’d prepared for their journey,
Comfortably dressed, wearing dark shoes.
Leaving their bodies prone, on bunk beds
In the Rancho Santa Fe mansion.
Was there a message in those shoes?
Some metaphor for traveling?
They did not look
Like people who wore shoes to bed.
Tragedy becomes farce,
Especially when we're made uncomfortable.
Within days the waters were tested,
“Such a waste of perfectly good shoes”
It was essential to avoid the many Christian images
How could one enter the “Kingdom of Heaven"?
By committing suicide?
Such a terrible sin! Had they not read “The Book”?
What fools, simpletons.
Such a ridiculous belief system.
Surely they were deluded.
Still, there remains a kind of vibration.
If they were absurd… what of us?
Will someone offer a fact,
Just a small one, to note the difference
Separating our knowledge from their superstition?
Soon enough the distinction was found,
Uttered by a neighbor, “They were renters”
Prayer for a Lecture
I don’t lose sleep the night before,
Or rehearse my lines “just once more”.
Let the jokes seem awfully funny,
May the weather be bright and sunny
Not too many or too few,
Hopefully, not too sober a crew.
Some questions, always a good sign
My answers of course, will be viewed as sublime.
It would help if they think I know,
My job is, after all, to put on a show.
To entertain and look profound
Suggesting my feet never touch the ground.
My resume really looks great
It took me weeks to create!
Some parts are actually true
Apart from my name, maybe one or two.
I can’t read my notes, my postures bad,
I feel disheveled. No I’m not glad,
To be standing in front of this ridiculous crowd
Too many people, I think I am cowed.
It’s time to begin, to utter a word
Dramatic and loud I must make myself heard.
I’ll throw light on the subject, the class will be dazzled
Not knowing I’m sweating… and perfectly frazzled.
Or rehearse my lines “just once more”.
Let the jokes seem awfully funny,
May the weather be bright and sunny
Not too many or too few,
Hopefully, not too sober a crew.
Some questions, always a good sign
My answers of course, will be viewed as sublime.
It would help if they think I know,
My job is, after all, to put on a show.
To entertain and look profound
Suggesting my feet never touch the ground.
My resume really looks great
It took me weeks to create!
Some parts are actually true
Apart from my name, maybe one or two.
I can’t read my notes, my postures bad,
I feel disheveled. No I’m not glad,
To be standing in front of this ridiculous crowd
Too many people, I think I am cowed.
It’s time to begin, to utter a word
Dramatic and loud I must make myself heard.
I’ll throw light on the subject, the class will be dazzled
Not knowing I’m sweating… and perfectly frazzled.
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